“Why do you want to know?” she said when he pressed her.

“Does he know about me?”

“No. I told you that.”

“Or the others?”

“You think there are so many?”

He waited. “Does he know?”

She belted her robe tightly, reaching for a cigarette. “No. Why? Do you want to tell him?”

“You said you didn’t want to lie to me. But you lie to him.”

“Maybe I have feelings for you.”

“Now you are lying to me.”

She glanced over at him, then smiled wryly, and drew on the cigarette. “I’m a whore. That’s what we do. You’re surprised?”

“Tell me.”

“Oh, tell what? Leave me alone. He’s rescuing me. That’s how he sees things, a fairy story. He gives me this room. So I’m like a princess, somebody in a window. In a drawing.”

“And he’s the prince?”

She smiled again. “The pasha. He stole the building. An Armenian owned it. Remember the Varlik Vergisi, how they taxed the Jews and the Armenians and when they couldn’t pay they sent them to camps and took what was left? He got the building. So he gives me this room. No rent. But I pay for it with him. Is that what you want to know?”

“And he thinks you’ve given it up? The others?”

“He thinks I’m grateful. I am grateful. But I have to think of the future too. He gets tired of me. Anything can happen. He’s a simple man. A business in Şişhane. He never thought he could have anything like this, a girl in a room, waiting for him. But now he’s a big landlord. Rents. So it was the tax, maybe, that got me out of that place. Strange how things work.”

“Why strange?”

“I’m Armenian. He steals from an Armenian and he gives the room to another. I don’t think he knows. A woman-it’s all the same to him. So I lie to him. I don’t lie to you.”

“Why not?”

“I know who he is. A man who steals. You-I’m not so sure. You never tell me anything.”